New Avengers 25

New Avengers 25

After the first two issues of EIGHT MONTHS LATER (I keep writing and/or wanting to write TIME RUNS OUT but I think that's AFTER all this business?) in NEW AVENGERS 24 and AVENGERS 35 (and 36, but that doesn't apply here), we've seen what some of the Illuminati and their new associates are up to, with Amadeus Cho getting captured by the Avengers and SHIELD trying to salvage Stark files, and Black Panther forced to watch as Wakanda falls to the Cabal. Now we see what Beast, Reed Richards, Hulk (DOC GREEN), and Captain Britain are doing these days. Mostly they're trying to figure out what the Avengers are doing and what the Cabal is doing and how the planets are doing and so on and so forth. Things aren't going great. The book ends after the team checks in on the captured and interrogated (by Sue Storm) Amadeus Cho and Black Panther returns, proclaiming that Wakanda has fallen.

There's still a good deal of useful information here but it's on a backdrop of events we've seen already, so most of this issue is soft science and reactions to the things we've seen. Again, that's not to say this isn't still a useful and/or important issue, but it almost serves more to catch readers up on what's been happening since this new event started. Hickman tends to take opportunities like this to give us a sense of the current tone and a little bit more on the characters and I think he does that well here, letting us see Reed's reaction to Sue's pursuit of his team and him specifically and building up the characters of people like Amadeus Cho and Captain Britain. Hickman also does a good job of highlighting while not hitting us over the head with the absences of some major characters in this future. I've had some issues with Kev Walker on some of the NEW AVENGERS art that he's done prior to this but I think he handles this issue admirably. If you're looking to save a bit of money this month and you've read the first couple issues of this mini-event so far, you can probably skip this one without missing too much.

Total Score: 3/5

Savage Wolverine 4, Ultimate Wolverine 3, Wolverine MAX 6

Savage Wolverine 4
Cho (w and a) and Keith (c)

Amadeus Cho (WAIT A MINUTE, I just connected that writer/artist of the book Frank CHO has brought Amadeus CHO off the bench and back into the Marvel Universe. I'm not sure what to make of that but there must be SOMETHING. Or maybe there isn't, that's a totally viable answer too) directs the natives of the Savage Land to bring Shanna to where ever it is they can revive her. That place seems to be a little bath in front of a creature that looks suspiciously like Man-Thing. Cho decides it can't be Man-Thing because he's off somewhere else with the former Thunderbolts right now. However, his onboard computer Calvin insists it has the same genetic makeup as Man-Thing, meaning that there's more than one Man-Thing out there. Anyway, Shanna is laid down in the little bath and Man-Thing covers her up in neon-green liquid. Moments after she's fully submerged, she springs out from it, her wound healed. She demands answers and is told that she is forever bonded to the Savage Land now. Her power is greater than it was and she'll live as long as the Savage Land does. Bad news on that front, though, the bomb that she and Wolverine were planning to bring to destroy the dampening field wouldn't be enough and would likely only serve to wake up the monster that the savages have kept trapped there. She runs full tilt to the machine (with Amadeus clocking her at 52 miles per hour, showing off her new enhanced powers) and launches a spear through Wolverine to stop him. It works, but the island brings someone new to them at the same moment: Hulk.
As the first arc pushes to its conclusion, we now have a scrappy brawler in Wolverine, a world-class specimen in Shanna, a genius with a powerful suit in Amadeus Cho and a heavy in Hulk. We pretty much have our own full-fledged superhero team on the island at this point. Whether Hulk will be the amenable Hulk who's eager to help (unlikely and possibly non-existent) or the angry and defensive Hulk (far more prevalent) remains to be seen. It also is worth questioning whether he's strong enough to serve as the three high-yield hydrogen bombs Cho determined they need to shut down the dampening field or just strong enough to wake up the monster. I guess we'll find out next issue as Frank Cho's first Savage Wolverine arc comes to an end.

Ultimate Wolverine 3
Bunn (w) and Messina and Carlucci w/ Erskine (a) and Tartaglia (c)

Project: Mothervine is revealed as a secret government project to inject women with chemical that would ensure their children would be mutants and, on top of that, mutants that could be weaponized with a single phrase. On top of the ethical problems that come right off the bat with that one, there are concerns about mutants as property and as created by the government as weapons and as being peaceful humans, which is what Jimmy is fighting for on Utopia. Kind of in the same way that Cable and X-Force had to stop a virus from killing humans and leaving mutants unharmed and therefore blamed in their first arc, Mothervine would make non-weaponized mutants culpable for the actions of the ones who couldn't help themselves. Quicksilver knows about the project and intends to use it to strike back at humanity, citing the Sentinels as reason enough to attack humans. He insists that Wolverine's blood is the key, though hasn't revealed how yet. He does demonstrate the power of Mothervine, showing Jimmy a young woman who, when activated, kills everyone surrounding her with a flesh-eating virus, unaware of what she's doing. Jimmy demands that he stop it and Quicksilver kills her. Jimmy attacks Quicksilver but finds himself outmatched as Quicksilver easily puts him down and contains him, along with Black Box. When Jimmy wakes up, Black Box reveals that he can open the lock to their prison and that the cameras are running on a loop. They decide to go after Quicksilver when he's hopefully not expecting it.
The mini-series is winding down and it shows with this issue. The pacing of this book has been solid, lining everything up well and explaining things when they need to be explained. The four issues give enough time to lay out the plot, explain the plot, give us characters, give us tension and action, and end the story. It's done well here and it gives us a good sense of most characters involved. If I'd say it's lacking anything, it might be a greater understanding of Jimmy Hudson. He's been mostly quiet and, aside from his desire to find out about his past and a quick stop in with his parents, we haven't seen too much about him. Of course, there has to be some amount of sacrifice when you only have four issues and, frankly, Jimmy gets the most screen time outside of this book so it makes sense that revelations about his personality might be few and far between. Quicksilver continues to be an interesting character in the Ultimate Universe, both brutal and horribly efficient while remaining dedicated to his cause. He also shows some regret and a desire for redemption for his past, though maybe his methods aren't the best. I'll be interested to see how this series wraps up. It's been impressive so far.

Wolverine MAX 6
Starr (w) and Ruiz, Jacinto, and Mogorron (a) and Brown (c)

I couldn't help but think back, when I read this issue, to the answer Matt Fraction gave this weekend on his blog about why he was promising not to kill Lucky the pizza dog off in Hawkeye. The asker had wondered if it had anything to do with a threatening email in issue three about killing the dog. Fraction, seemingly genuinely confused about the question, responded that it had nothing to do with that but instead had "everything to do with not wanting to be the hugest hack in the universe." Well good news because from panel two of Wolverine MAX 6, we could pretty much deduce the kind of person who would kill a dog to illustrate a villain. Yes, Wolverine gets a pet dog in this issue (names it Dog and everything) and instantly sets about telling the audience how much he loves her. As someone who loves dogs, the only solace I could take in its death was knowing from the very first word of the comic that it was going to die. Made it easier not to get attached throughout the book. Fraction's not wrong, it's a hack move to create a dog, known for its loyalty and near unwavering love and also for being a dog and not a superhero, and kill it off simply to show that the bad guys are bad. We know they're bad because they're the type of people who would kill a dog. So who are these bad guys? They're tied to a woman that Wolverine meets at the beach and promptly offers to drive around to her various "modeling" jobs. These seem a bit less than wholesome and Wolverine crashes one and attacks a guy who is attempting to rape the woman (who says her name is Candy). Wolverine demands Candy leave with him and they get away, with Candy warning Wolverine that he's angered the wrong people. He finds this out after he drops her off (and doesn't have sex with her, nicely done Wolverine, thanks for avoiding that at least) and returns to his car to find his beloved dog Dog dead. BAD GUYS.
I don't think it's wrong to give Wolverine a dog. After I had seen the dog and decided it was going to die, I thought about it a little more and overall the dog fits with Wolverine. He's dog-like himself, Marvel has never been particularly subtle about that. So I'd be okay with Wolverine having a dog. Like Fraction, though, I'm less okay with giving Wolverine a dog and INSTANTLY killing it to show the bad guys. I'm not sure I would feel better or worse about giving Wolverine a dog and, somewhere down the road a ways, killing it to show off some bad guys as particularly bad. I think it's a step better than what happened here, creating a dog solely so you can kill him, but overall it still has the same taste about it. So I guess my review for this comic boils down to "keep not killing Pizza Dog over in Hawkeye, Fraction. Bang-up job."

Savage Wolverine 2, Wolverine MAX 4

Savage Wolverine 2
Cho (w and a) and Keith (c)

Still not sold. That's what this is going to come down to, so there's my prediction for the end of this review. My issues from last week are at least somewhat diminished, largely regarding Shanna and her often exposed bits. Don't get me wrong, they're still pretty exposed. And yes, that's Shanna's outfit and Kazar is just as exposed, sure. Though, I'd argue with Kazar, his secret parts (the totally adult way I refer to genitals) aren't bulging out, as Shanna's breasts are. The reason I'm saying, then, that they're somewhat diminished is that Cho revealed that Shanna IS, in fact, wearing a leopard-print bikini bottom  underneath her loin cloth. So that's a step up and, quite frankly after last issue, we were at kind of a low bar. However, the story itself wasn't as prominent here as it was in issue one, which is worrying. They reiterated the fact, a lot, that they need to get off the island and that they need to damage a machine and that there are dinosaurs in the Savage Land. If I had to summarize this issue, I'd say "Wolverine and Shanna fight dinosaurs, talk about needing to get off the island, fight more dinosaurs, and bicker. And Amadeus Cho shows up and allows the natives to think he's a god."

In truth, the Amadeus Cho stuff was the most interesting of this issue. It's worth wondering where he's been since he and Hercules split up after, I think, the Chaos War, and after his very small part in, I want to say, Fear Itself. He's at least typically a pretty intriguing character, if just because unbelievably intelligent people are usually easy to watch. So he shows up, with a new AI named Calvin and with powers tied to that AI. It's like Iron Man's Jarvis AI in the movies and what not. Though the machine on the island preventing Shanna and Wolverine's escape is impairing his own abilities, Cho is still able to protect himself with an AI-based exoskeleton, translate with his AI-based universal translator, and hover a bit with his AI-based...hover-abilities, I guess? He does all of this as he's attacked by some natives and they quickly bow to him. If I'm sounding vague about this new AI, it's because we only know what we're given right now. Presumably we'll hear a backstory about it at some point or something along those lines because I believe it's new tech for Cho.

Unfortunately, the fact that Cho is the most interesting part to me of this issue doesn't really bode well for a book called "Savage Wolverine." I just don't get it, I think. When I didn't realize there was a new Wolverine book coming out with Marvel NOW!, Savage Wolverine made some amount of sense. Bring Wolverine back to his more antihero roots outside of things like Wolverine and the X-Men and Uncanny Avengers. But Paul Cornell and Alan Davis have a new Wolverine series coming out in March and the next review on this very page is Wolverine MAX, which has more leeway with swearing and gore and sex. We'll see how Cornell's series goes, but it does beg the question "why does Savage Wolverine need to exist?" Still not sold.

Wolverine MAX 4
Starr (w) and Boschi and Ruiz (a) and Brown (c)

I admit, I think I missed an issue or two of this series. I remember the first issue and maybe another one in between then and now but a lot of the information in this one was a first to me. However, it's also possible that's because of my predisposed sort of aversion to the MAX line or to the fact that, as an ugly American, I tend to zone out a little more when Wolverine's in Japan. It usually ties to his samurai background and I just tell myself I'll never fully understand it so my brain doesn't even bother trying. It happens. Still something interesting going on, clearly, that I'm JUST on the outskirts of. Wolverine has run across Victor Creed and Creed is trying to convince him that he's responsible for a plane crash that killed all the passengers (aside from Wolverine), including his own girlfriend Yami. Wolverine refuses to believe it but his memories are shot from the crash and he can't confirm that what Creed is saying isn't true. Neither can the audience, so we're left in a tough spot trying to figure out if Wolverine is the animal he always tries to bury or if Creed's lying, like normal.

The issue shows a series of flashbacks as Logan slowly gains memories back. He attempts to remember his deceased wife Mariko and what the cause of her death was, as well as where he might have hidden a sword she gave him (which Creed needs). Along the way, he starts to remember bits from the plane ride. Finally, just as someone sneaks up on him at Mariko's grave, he remembers that there was a decoy on the plane with a detonator who Wolverine tried to stop while Yami pressed the real detonator. It's an interesting story that goes the way a lot of Wolverine stories tend to go. Wolverine can't remember what's happening, he can't decide if he's a monster or not, and finally he realizes that he was a pawn or that he's being manipulated or that he's the good guy. The next step, likely saved for Wolverine MAX 5, is to beat up a whole lot of people. So get ready for that.

Like I said, the story's a pretty good one, if well-tread. I do appreciate that both this book and Fury MAX 9 steered a little bit clear of the MAX designation. There was extra blood and a couple extra swears, but I don't think it really stood out a whole ton. There are plenty of things like this MAX line (where this has happened before) or, for example, shows on HBO and the like that have excessive amounts of swearing or sex just because they can. It usually weakens the story. I'm not saying that these series won't eventually have elements of that, but it's nice to see that they aren't leaning on it. Still, we'll have to see how this storyline pans out before making a full-out judgment for or against it.